In June this year, International Container Terminal Services, Inc.-a key player in global ports and supply chains-reached a market value of nearly ?2 trillion, making it the most valuable listed company on the Philippine Stock Exchange.
Its rise reflects strong earnings, global expansion, and investor confidence.
But for any company valued on expectations of future growth, the question is no longer limited to how much it earns today. Investors also want to know whether it can withstand supply-chain disruptions, climate risks, regulatory pressures, and governance failures-and whether its long-term plans are supported by reliable data.
That is why environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting is moving beyond the old view that it is mainly a corporate communications exercise. Credible ESG reporting requires business strategy, risk management, operational knowledge, supply-chain insight, reliable data systems, active board oversight, and clear storytelling that helps stakeholders understand what the numbers mean.
More than just PR
Many companies first approached sustainability through visible initiatives-a tree-planting activity, a polished report, or a reassuring CEO message. These efforts helped build awareness, but expectations have since evolved. Today, stakeholders increasingly look for measurable results, credible data, and clear evidence of progress.
Regulators, investors, lenders, and standard-setters have since built a more consistent language for sustainability information, aimed at making material information comparable and verifiable.
ESG matters because it can influence revenue, financing, risk, and investor confidence. Supply-chain disruption, climate risk, and poor governance are not merely corporate social responsibility concerns. They can increase costs, interrupt operations, weaken investor confidence, and reduce long-term value.
That is why BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, uses ESG data to identify risks that may affect profits, resilience, and future growth.
The business case is already visible. More than 40,000 Asia-Pacific customers joined DHL Express’ GoGreen Plus service within a year because it helped them reduce and report shipment emissions. Maersk’s 500-million-euro green bond attracted 3.7 billion euros in orders-more than seven times the amount offered-because investors saw a clear financing plan and measurable commitments.
Credible ESG performance can attract customers, strengthen access to capital, and turn sustainability from a corporate message into measurable business value.
Where PH stands
The Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued Memorandum Circular No. 16, Series of 2025, adopting PFRS S1 and S2. These are based on standards developed by the International Sustainability Standards Board, or ISSB, which aims to make sustainability reporting clearer and more consistent across countries.
The rules will be introduced in stages. Tier 1 companies, with a market capitalization of more than P50 billion, begin reporting on fiscal year 2026 in 2027. Tier 2 companies, with a market capitalization of P3 billion to P50 billion, begin in 2027 and report in 2028.
Tier 3 companies, including smaller listed firms, certain PDEx debt issuers, and large nonlisted companies earning more than P15 billion a year, begin in 2028 and report in 2029.
The board must review and approve these reports before they are released. This means ESG reporting can no longer be left only to communications, finance, compliance, or auditors. Companies should prepare early because finding the right data, assigning responsibilities, and correcting gaps can take time.
Scope 1 covers emissions from sources the company owns or controls, such as vehicles, generators, boilers, and equipment. Scope 2 covers emissions from the electricity, heating, cooling, or steam the company buys. The information is often already found in utility bills and facilities records.
Scope 3 covers emissions connected to the wider value chain, including suppliers, purchased goods, deliveries, employee travel, and customer use of products.
The SEC allows some temporary relief for Scope 3 reporting, but companies should not ignore it. Identifying suppliers, locating records, and filling data gaps take time. Starting early is the safer and more practical approach.
Reports for different markets
For two decades, our group has produced annual, sustainability, corporate, and strategic reports across different markets. As early as 2006, we helped a regional logistics company build sustainability credentials into its master bidding proposal. It later grew into a global player.
By 2011, Dubai Customs was already advancing voluntary sustainability reporting, while Dubai Chamber had long treated reporting not merely as public relations, but as a management tool. Years before ESG became a boardroom priority, the lesson was already clear: Good reporting can strengthen strategy, credibility, and growth.
Three lessons stand out.
First, ESG reporting belongs to the whole company. It cannot be left to finance, communications, or auditors alone. The data sits across the enterprise: electricity records with finance or administration, fuel use with logistics, supplier data with procurement, employee information with HR, and risk and compliance records with legal and governance teams.
The first job of management is simple but critical: Identify the data, assign an owner, and establish clear controls over how it is collected, checked, and approved. Technology can speed up this work. Digital platforms and AI tools can organize information, flag inconsistencies, and locate supporting records.
But they cannot replace accountability. Every important claim still needs a reliable source, a clear method, and proper approval.
Second, ESG data is a management tool, not merely a compliance requirement. When gathered properly, it can reveal where costs are rising, where operations are exposed, which suppliers create risk, and where efficiencies or new opportunities may be found.
I often say that the CEO is the company’s Chief Reputation Officer. ESG data gives that role evidence rather than instinct. It helps leaders ask sharper questions: Which risks could interrupt operations? Which promises are unsupported by data? Which supplier practices could become tomorrow’s crisis? Which efficiencies could improve both margins and environmental performance?
Searchable, accessible info
Third, the medium matters as much as the message. A sustainability report should not be a ceremonial book or a static PDF buried on a website. It should be searchable, accessible, easy to navigate, and supported by data that can be traced to its source. A web-based report allows investors to find material information quickly. Videos and visual explainers help employees, customers, and communities understand what the numbers mean.
Digital formats can also connect policies, targets, results, case studies, and evidence in one place.
Marshall McLuhan famously said, ‘The medium is the message.’ In ESG reporting, the medium also determines whether the message is found, understood, shared, and trusted.
The new era of ESG reporting is not about making companies appear virtuous. It is about helping them see themselves more clearly-and giving boards, investors, regulators, customers, and employees reliable information on which to act.
This is not a wall to climb, but a door opening. Companies that begin now, with honesty and discipline, will be better placed to earn trust and compete.
What a company can see, it can manage. What it can manage, it can measure. And what it can measure credibly, stakeholders can trust.
Dr. Karen Remo is Co-Chair for Communications at MAP, and Founder and CEO of New Perspective Group, an international consulting, reputation management, and data-storytelling organization serving clients across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. A Philippine Presidential Awardee, Entrepreneur of the Year in UAE, and Middle East Female Leader of the Year, she has also been named among the global honorees of the Icons of Change International Awards 2026.